“Tell me you don’t want me waltzing with anyone but you,” he said.
“Peter—”
“Please tell me.”
She bowed her head and closed her eyes.
“I cannotbearthe thought of you waltzing with anyone but me,” she half whispered.
“Susanna—”
She opened her eyes and looked into his, her own still somewhat reddened from the weeping.
“I really cannot bear it,” she said, but he was no longer sure she was talking just about the waltz.
He spread his hand over the soft curls at the back of her head and drew it down toward his until her arms came about his neck and he kissed her.
And he knew at that moment that love would never die, that it would never fade away altogether. The time might come when he would meet and marry someone else. He might even be reasonably happy. But there would always be a deep, precious place in his heart that belonged to his first real love. To Susanna.
But he was not going to think meekly about that someone else and that reasonably happy life he might live. He was not giving up what he really wanted without a fight. He might never have been much of a knight during his twenty-six years, he might never have been in the habit of searching out dragons to fight and quell—indeed, he had run from them five years ago. But he would find one and fight it to the death if Susanna were the prize.
Or perhaps even if she were not.
Her face was a little above his, cupped in his hands, her auburn curls spilling over his fingers, her eyes very green.
“Let me take you upstairs,” he found himself saying. “There is no fire up there, but the bedcovers are warm. Let me make love to you.”
He felt as though he had walked out to the end of a plank, a helpless prisoner on a pirate ship. He felt more vulnerable than he had ever felt in his life before. If she said no, every dream he had ever dreamed would be shattered. For he was not asking her just to bed with him. He was asking for her love. He was offering his own.
He was offering everything he had, everything he was.
Did she know that? Did she understand?
He watched her swallow.
“Yes,” she said.
23
She should, of course, have said no. This time she knew exactlywhat she had agreed to—future pain, the danger of consequences. And she knew too that afterward, sometime before she returned to Bath, he would offer her marriage again—and that she would refuse again. She even knew that his feelings for her were deeper than just liking. She knew that her refusal would hurt him.
She did not care about any of it.
Sometimes love was to be grasped in any form and in any manner it was offered. And sometimes love must be given in the same way. After a morning of emotional turmoil, she wanted, more than anything else in this world, to give love, to pour it out recklessly and unstintingly.
“Yes,” she said again, and got to her feet.
He set a guard in front of the fire and took her by the hand. They left the room and went up the wide staircase together without speaking and turned to their right, past several closed doors, until he opened one that led into a front-facing room, obviously the main bedchamber, which was fully furnished, just as the downstairs was. The bed was made up.
“Susanna,” he said, turning to her, taking both her hands in his and holding them against the lapels of his coat, “are you sure?”
She was. She had never been more sure of anything in her life. She wanted to give, and she wanted to receive, and it struck her suddenly that both were equally important components of love. She loved him and would give him her body. She would allow him to give to her in exchange.
“I am,” she said. “Make love with me, Peter.”
“Withyou.” He smiled as he leaned his head closer and touched his lips lightly to hers. “Yes, I like it.”
She let him unclothe her, first her dress, then her stockings, then her undergarments. She thought at first that she would be embarrassed. But how could she be when his eyes worshiped her and his hands too as he stripped the clothes away? And there was something undeniably erotic about the cold room and his warm hands. Her arms were covered with goose bumps, partly from the cold, partly from the anticipation of what was to come.
